Police say a man shot and killed a woman while intervening in an attack near Recreation Park early Saturday morning.
The woman had been going around the 600 block of Roycroft Avenue after midnight and banging on people’s doors, according to witnesses and authorities.
Neighbors ignored her and kept their doors shut, one resident who witnessed the attack said. But at one point, according to witnesses and police, the woman began attacking a driver in the area, dragging her out of the vehicle.
The driver was screaming for help when a neighbor, identified by authorities only as a man, came outside with a gun to see what was going on, according to witnesses and authorities.
The neighbor pointed the gun at the woman and yelled at her to stop attacking, according to the witnesses. The woman stopped but then charged at the neighbor with the gun, who shot her, the witnesses said.
Police had already been called numerous times to the scene around 12:30 a.m. after neighbors reported seeing the woman following people home and knocking on their doors and windows, but officers were not sent out because they were responding to a different call that was considered a priority at the time, authorities said.
After dispatchers received a call just before 1 a.m. that a shooting had occurred in the area, officers were sent out to investigate and found the woman had been shot in the head.
Despite efforts by authorities to save her life, she was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. She was identified by police as 44-year-old Andrea Powell from East Long Beach.
The neighbor who shot her was detained and interviewed by detectives, according to authorities, who said they recovered the gun used in the shooting.
The neighbor, however, was later released based on the “totality of circumstances related to this incident,” police said.
The LBPD says it will present the case to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, which will decide whether to file criminal charges.
Neighbors Saturday morning said they didn’t recognize Powell, and that she was acting erratically and yelling that she was a housekeeper while pounding on their doors before the shooting.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with more information from police and witnesses.